


Ten Years Gone

by warmommy



Category: Inglourious Basterds (2009)
Genre: Espionage, F/M, False Identity, Lost Love, Marrying the enemy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-06
Updated: 2018-02-01
Packaged: 2019-03-01 00:39:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13283253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/warmommy/pseuds/warmommy
Summary: Then as it was, then again it will be. While deep undercover in France, Reader accidentally a Dieter Hellstrom. Reader is compelled by her superiors to pursue a relationship and eventual marriage with this man, all the while still completely lost in love with someone from a long time ago.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> a/n: I need to clear a couple of things up before you read this. One, this began as a different prompt fill altogether and just morphed into something new, so I went with it. Two, this is actually another prompt fill altogether for a different character altogether, I just don’t want it to be revealed who until part two. Until then, Dieter Hellstrom, everyone.
> 
> Thanks for reading! You can find this and a lot more at my tumblr, warmommy.tumblr.com!

 

 

 

You had hardly emerged from the powder room before hearing the steps from the outer edges of the room approaching. Without looking, you knew it was the one who had been staring from the corner moments before.

“Excusez-moi mademoiselle?” He had put on his hat and towered over you now, hands behind his back. The dark uniform was accentuated by the stark red band on his arm. “Parlez-vous allemand?”

You looked at him the way that every man wanted to be looked at by a woman, and prayed silently that this was what he was after.

Your eyes traveled over his, down to the pleasant curve of his lips, sharply downward to take in his uniform, then back up to his lips, the line of his nose, and to his eyes again. You kept your lips, freshened just now with more peach sheen, stay slightly parted. Then you blinked, as if catching yourself, held your handbag more carefully, and straightened your posture. It was all over in a matter of seconds, but you saw his pupils grow larger, noticed the bob of his throat. “Oh, yes, sir, yes, I do speak German–it is not perfect, please forgive me. May I help you?”

“It is enough that I can speak with you, I assure you,” he said in smooth, unstunted German. He smiled and reached politely for your hand. “Sturmbannführer Dieter Hellstrom. You are?”

“Oh, my! No one so impressive, that is for certain. Marie Fournier is my name, if you’ll give me one moment…” You fumbled about with your bag, lace-gloved fingers feigning clumsiness, and pulled out the falsified documents identifying you as this young woman of twenty-two.

He looked at them, as they all did, but his eyes only flicked down to the photograph of you. Your hair had been pinned back, appearing shorter than it was. Now it flowed in careful curls and waves down your shoulders, and he was taking it all in. “That’s an interesting accent. Some Bavarian relatives taught you German?”

You blushed when he kissed your hand. “My grandmother was a proud German woman, sir.”

Dieter moved just a tad bit closer, so you did as well. Every bit of these initial encounters was crucial, every second, every look, every glance, and you knew exactly how to interpret it all. “Well, Miss Fournier, forgive me for being so obtuse, but I find myself alone in your beautiful city. There is a restaurant I saw a short walk from here, I couldn’t possibly pronounce the name if I tried, but might I tempt you into having dinner with me?”

“Aux P'tits Crocs?” You wrinkled your nose when you smiled at him because he was precisely the sort of man that found such a thing cute and coquettish.

He closed his eyes and nodded once, deeply. “That was the one. I haven’t offended you? Have you come here with your boyfriend?”

Now you snickered, shaking your head. “Goodness, no! No, I met with friends from my old job for coffee, but they have already left. I was just leaving, myself, sir, but if you’d like the company, I’ll gladly join you.”  

This was a much, much bigger fish than you’d been sent after.

* * *

Dieter was as boring and self-congratulatory as any German you had met since coming to France. He spoke in circles around what he meant, what he wanted, but took every chance to get closer. He lit cigarettes for you, opened doors, pulled out chairs, and you let your eyes grow a bit wider, let your grateful grasp of his arm linger just so. You needed to be what he wanted, needed for him to pursue this path, to decide that he wanted more, all while carefully and completely avoiding the trap of the common girl who’d spread her legs for any man in uniform, clicking his heel.

He had to believe you were a woman of quality, as pristine and demure as the Chanel suit you wore. He even pretended that he was, too. After his driver took you home, you drank two glasses of brandy and fell asleep in your living room chair.

Dieter’s speckled face became a regular part of your life since that evening, and when your commanding officer asked, you were able to supply, with no doubt in your mind, that the Gestapo major was seriously smitten. Dieter came to see your performances on stage more commonly than not, and had roses and lilies and orchids sent to rehearsals.

This was your job, your true one, and you were trained to cultivate the affections of men precisely like him, to infiltrate their lives and endear yourself to them. The mission was only as successful as your ability to convince a man he was loved, and that he ought to love you, in return. You could be Dieter Hellstrom’s admirer, his wide-eyed French darling, because it was your job. You could look into those dark blue eyes and pretend he was a man that you loved, was  _the_  man you loved.

You could wear red dresses and go out on his arm, receive green-eyed gazes from French girls dating lesser officers or enlisted men, have your gloved hands kissed by men Dieter greeted more or less respectfully. He never said it, but you knew he was not overly fond of most of the people he was required to interact with in his work. Dieter was by no means the worst you could have targeted. He was kind, and he relaxed his face when it was just the two of you. Once, sitting under the sun in a bench swing away from the prying eyes of others, Dieter sighed in your arms and softly requested that you speak French to him until he fell asleep.

He was also the sort of person who kept things lined up in neat rows, everything in its perfect place, and you adapted to play your part in that, too. Two months passed since your meeting, and he invited you away to Switzerland. You knew what was coming and had to work diligently to hide your hangover that morning when you left, his hand warm and firm around yours.

At the modern mountain resort, you stood by plate glass windows overlooking the Alps, seeing them in a whole new way. The hand holding your glass of wine grew somewhat slack, but you felt it being pulled away from you.

Dieter set it aside on a table and wrapped both arms around you from behind, and you startled, because he’d never done something so forward in all the time you’d known him. He’d kissed you half a hundred times, but this was almost full body contact. Before you could open your mouth, he leaned down and kissed the top of your head, and lingered.

“I never imagined you could look any more beautiful,” he said quietly, although there was no one else around, to your knowledge. “Come and talk with me. I want to see what you look like with snowflakes in your eyelashes.”

Nine times out of ten, regardless of how you felt, you never gave a single word of protest to his suggestions. He never asked for anything unreasonable, and you knew he wasn’t a man who invited much question to his commands. There had been two new drivers already.

“Is it terribly cold, dear?” you asked, following closely behind.

“I don’t think so. I won’t take you far.” He placed your warm hat on top of your head himself and smiled down at you. “I’d never let you catch chill.”

You wrinkled your nose while pulling on your coat. “Of course not, that’s the silliest thing you’ve ever said.”

By the look in his eyes, then, the happiness in the newly-forming lines around them, you saw someone else. It was just for a second, and you were able to play the tears in your eyes as sniffles coming on from the cold weather, but it was harder to hold his hand. He walked with his arm around you until he stopped before a different view, and it was unfortunate that no one had thought to build the entire hotel around this single landscape.

You breathed a soft huff and a little cloud formed and dissipated in the air around your cheeks. “This is  _lovely_.”

“I hope you’ll forgive me for not bringing along a chaperone for you,” he began a few moments later. You fought to keep the tension from your spine and looked up at him with a funny little grin you knew would disarm him. Sure enough, Dieter’s eyelashes dipped and he kissed you, a little more firmly and a little longer than he had before.

“Dieter, I’ve no need of one. There’s no safer place for me than here.” You squeezed one of his arms and bashfully leaned against his shoulder so that he couldn’t look directly at your face. “I’m so happy you’ve brought me.”

“Do you know what I want?” Still, that dreamy smile.

You shook your head against him.

Dieter lifted your chin so that you couldn’t hide anymore, his bare fingers on your bare skin. “I want to come here, on this day, every year. I love you.” Now, he brushed the quiet teardrops from your eyelashes, rather than snow. “Marie, my work takes me to Paris next month, where I’ll be indefinitely. It’s only sensible that we marry before then.”

The trembling was real, as were the tears, as was the quavering of your voice, but Dieter Hellstrom took it all in stride as his new fiancee simply being happy. He kissed you a thousand times the next few days, before you were due to return to France. He poured perhaps as many glasses of wine and champagne. He admired the look of his ring on your finger, and he capitulated from starry-eyed discussion of raising your children in Berlin, after the war was over, and the practical matter of you immediately tendering your resignation from the dance company.

In your living room chair again, piles of moving boxes surrounding you, you wept and stared at the solitaire diamond like it was your own death warrant.

It wasn’t the getting married part, or even the getting married to a Nazi officer part. You didn’t hate Dieter, the person, even if it had taken a while to find that person existed. In another world, Dieter would only be a man, after all. Not a man you would’ve chosen, but a decent one, someone who would’ve tried to live an honest life, probably never disturbing another soul. Sometimes he even said things that were openly, drastically different from the code he was supposed to be living. He loved his family. He wanted to make one of his own.

It wasn’t possible to love him, of course, and most of the time, you couldn’t find any reason in particular to  _like_  him, but it wasn’t a matter of hate.

You  _did_  hate everything he stood for. You hated to stand beside him in his pressed uniform, hated kissing the cheeks of other French girlfriends, hated the cigarettes he made you smoke, hated giving up working and dancing, one of the few things you did like about your deep undercover life.

In spite of everything, of how the powers that be urged you to go forth with this awful marriage, insisting that it would never be considered legitimate, the thought of marrying Dieter Hellstrom made you truly, physically sick. Your superiors didn’t consider it a factor at all that you’d be sharing a bed with this man, this enemy, this modest and amiable person who was inherently, unforgivably evil. All that confusion, and he also was just the wrong person.

As he wished, as your superiors wished, you married in an extremely private ceremony once all your things were packed away and on a truck to Paris. There was only you, Dieter, the minister, and the people who had pretended to be your parents for years. Mother wept and hugged his neck. Father shook his hand and expressed his heartfelt joy.

Dieter was happy. Usually he wasn’t, you’d figured that out by now. In the back of the car, however, holding onto you, Dieter Hellstrom was a happy man, and you tried to parley that into a reason to go on. Something had to work.

There was only one way to get through the rest of the night.

You remembered what it was like to be a virgin, although you were never the blushing, virgin bride you were pretending to be, now. Lying was the true language of your tongue, though, and men like Dieter were easy and predictable creatures. You knew to show almost no arousal. You knew to hide your body a bit in the white sheets while he kissed you, and not to look at his. You knew how to meld a look of love and fear into something Dieter would want to honour and protect, into something he would love even more than he loved himself.

Really, he  _was_  kind, too. He surprised you, even, pausing everything to wrap his arms around you and bring you down from his perception of your fearful, nervous state. He threaded your fingers together, remarked how you would always be so intwined, with nothing but adoration in his dark blue eyes. He teased very lightly about being too scared to open your eyes, but didn’t press the matter, which made it quite easier for you to think back, to remember how you had been as happy as him when you’d actually lost your virginity.

And with whom.

That made it possible to relax enough for him to go ahead. It made it  _so_  much easier to respond, to say that you loved him, too.

Nothing changed after that, in that he behaved the same way. He cursed around you more, but still sent flowers, even though you were simply at home, where he wanted you, now. Then, it all changed.

Dieter said it was because of love, and he said it with real love evident in his eyes and his face, making you twinge a bit with guilt, but mostly pure pity. He said it was because he had a beautiful wife who was proudly half-German with a proud German husband, and such a divine creature simply had to be shown off.

Seeing Landa again was no festive affair, the ass. He made his show of kissing your hand and calling you cute little German pet names, but you always felt it had more to do with how he and Dieter hated each other than anything else. Seeing Landa again, however, did not make you break the least amount of sweat. Long, long ago, it felt like, the ‘matter of security’, as far as you were concerned, had neatly disappeared. Dieter was jealous and seething, but that was only apparent to you.

“Come on, darling.” He gripped your hand, smiling tightly at Hans, and led you away. “I realise this is some surprise, but I wanted it to be. Today just so happened to be the perfect time and opportunity to introduce the loveliest woman in all of France to a couple of very important people.”

“Only France?” you replied automatically. It was a running joke between the two of you, or at least it was to him, but it always seemed to please him.

Dieter hummed quiet and self-assured laughter to himself and guided you through the bustling restaurant to a table set aside. On its own. Easily guarded. Very secure.

Your feet almost failed you, and you did falter, because you felt your fake husband walk directly into your back.

He just laughed again, politely.

“Ah, Dieter!” Joseph Goebbels set down the glass of whomever’s tears he was drinking. He looked quite the jolly fellow. Your hand curled involuntarily into a light fist. “I’m to understand this is your new bride.”

“Forgive me,” your words came shakily. “It is an honour to meet you, Dr. Goebbels.”

The young man to his side, you recognised well. You’d heard enough about him to bore you to tears, but damn if he weren’t a sweet child, standing to so humbly (although you couldn’t be sure it was a ruse) introduce himself to you and kiss your hand. “What a delight to meet you today, Frau Hellstrom. Might I introduce you to my friend, er, guest? She owns a nearby theatre, I hope you’ll be visiting it today with us…”

You smiled at the girl, but saw the cloaked terror in her eyes. What you wouldn’t give to hold her hand, to whisper that it would be all right, that you were a great pretender, too.


	2. Chapter 2

  
You almost took a tumble down the spiral stairs. Your feet and legs felt numb, and you had only a few seconds to reach the bottom and compose yourself before you would be seen. Your gut, heart, and soul all told you that this was it, this was the end of the line, a trap, but what could you have done? Dieter  _insisted_  that you make it to this ghastly tavern, at the 'near frantic' request of a woman whom he had not even had a clue that you knew, before he 'introduced' you days before.

"Ah,  _ma charmante_!" That was her, now. Gathered around her were three officers, none of them your husband, and at the table nearest to you was a random assortment of  enlisted men not worth noticing. You smiled nervously as all eyes centred on you. Bridget held her hand out, as if to take yours. "Marie-Ann Christine Hellstrom, please, come sit! These are the mates I told you would be accompanying me."

You looked around, hurrying across the crowded little room, still not spotting that goddamn Nazi you'd married. Bridget and all three men rose from the table as you approached, then the drunk boors behind you stood as well, but your eyes were on Bridget von Hammersmark. You kissed her cheeks quickly and stole another look at the man on her right. "I left as soon as I could. Imagine my  _surprise_  at hearing you are here!"

"Relax," Bridget whispered as you hugged, her hand patting your back. She pushed you gently towards the one on her right, who greeted you in one of the most unfortunate accents you had ever heard in your life. She then turned her sparkling eyes to her friends. "My loves, this is Herr Major's wife, she is a  _darling_ , and she's all ours until he returns! You'll find her to be a kindred spirit,  _so_  much like ourselves."

You sat with your back to the curious enlisted and let your eyes widen at the woman. "What have you done? Who are they?"

She leaned across the table your way with her little fucking cigarette holder, and the man beside you was simply radiating pure anger. Bridget responded more carefully in case there were any exceptionally good listeners nearby. "As you may have guessed, we have found ourselves in a bit of a funny situation, and I just know you can give us the assistance we need."

"I'm not laughing, bitch," you mouthed frantically, eyebrows raising high on your forehead. "Do you know what I have had to do, for how long, and you have my husband call me over here?"

"Oh, your Dieter is a  _lamb_!"

You gave her a sharp kick under the table and reached for the angry one's hand to still it. "I swear to you, before these strange men and the spiders and  _God_ , I don't care who they are, who you are, I have had this man  _inside_  me, and that is greater than any contribution  _you_  have ever made to the United Kingdom--"

"Frau Hellstrom," the English one began, but you grabbed his knee. You were running quickly out of hands and out of time.

"Do not speak," you warned him, barely above a whisper. "Cover your accent, pretend to be a lightweight, slur your speech."

"It is a great pleasure to meet you, Frau Hellstrom," said the man whose hand you were currently holding. Discernably German, subject to Dieter's scrutiny, but his was much better than yours. "I did not expect to be in the company of two such lovely ladies tonight."

A forced smile overcame your face as you looked at each other. "Lieutenant, you flatter me." In a lower voice, "I don't know who you are, but you need to control yourself."

"And  _this_ ," Bridget wrapped her arm around the dark-haired one's neck as he puffed away on a cigarette. "This is lovely Fabian, all the way from Munich. I invited them here tonight to discuss our plans for tomorrow, have a few drinks and a laugh, and I was so pleasantly surprised when I saw that your Dieter was in attendance, all the way here in little Nadine!"

Her eyes were desperate, so you calmed enough to accept her offer of a drink and a smoke. "Where is my love?"

Bridget smiled knowingly. "You may ask, but I couldn't possibly tell! Suffice to say that he stepped out a few moments to square something away for his beloved--I told you all, you have never seen two people more in love! Why, when Herr Major introduced us at the security screening just the other day, I can honestly say he never once took his eyes away from her. Newlyweds!"

Relief flooded you, if only for a moment. "Lovely Fabian, please order another round whenever he comes down so I'll know."

"Ja, Frau Hellstrom." He winked at you, and you didn't like it.

You released the hand of the angry German finally, not even having realised you had still been holding on. "This is either the greatest coincidence the world has ever known or a set-up, and I'm inclined not to believe in fancies."

Now the angry German leaned in close, as though sharing a quiet joke. "I'm Hugo Stiglitz. You may have read about me in the newspaper a few years ago. I'm going to kill your husband."

More relief, and you exhaled a heavy plume of thick smoke. "Not tonight, you'll just have to wait. I'm to understand the limey almost blew your cover and you did some quick thinking and got Dieter thinking of me, hm?"

"Limey? You're a servant to the King, are you not?"

You scoffed at him, feeling as though the bulk of your negative feelings should definitely be directed at this man, at this moment. "Yes. Québécois."

He scoffed back. "Not even a real froggy, eh?"

Bridget touched his arm gently. "My cover and the cover of these three men, four lives, could all be saved, as would the entire mission. You cannot believe that the risk of Dieter ever questioning you stands before this as a greater risk?"

"How the fuck was I supposed to know how balls-deep you were in the dog?"

Lovely Fabian giggled and covered his mouth with his hand, played it off as a cough. He cleared his throat. "You certainly remind me of someone, Frau Hellstrom. Maybe another great actress? I'll think on it. Another round?"

There was a great chorus of chairs scraping against the floor again, and men falling to attention. Your shoulders fell, just for a second, and you felt Bridget's heeled toes brush against your leg. You scootched over into the chair Stiglitz had been sitting in to make room for Dieter and smiled over your shoulder at him as he drew near. "I'm so glad that you called me! Bridget has introduced me to all of her guests for tomorrow night, and we're just discussing--debating, really--what sort of drinking game we'd like to play."

Still standing, Dieter smiled, put his arm around your back, and hummed curiously. "Well, you don't like that card game the others are playing. What are the other options, my love?"

You drummed your palms against the table immediately before his seat to encourage him to take it, then leaned towards him affectionately. "I think the most popular option is 'Paranoia'. Do you remember the rules? My beautiful Bridget has already filled in her friends."

"Ja, ja, you've managed to get me incredibly intoxicated playing this game before. The person on your right whispers you a question, the answer of which has to be somebody playing the game, say, 'who is the most attractive'. You respond out loud. If someone wants to know what the question was, they have to drink. Am I correct, or have you destroyed too many of my brain cells?" Dieter laughed for effect, glancing around the table. "What will you drink, my love? I doubt you want to down glass after glass of champagne, not after Switzerland."

You hummed softly, tilting your head side to side as if considering it. "Cocktails is more of my speed, for tonight. Be a dear and order for me?" When he turned to speak to the bartender, you glanced back at Hugo. "No matter what the question is, say my name about 80% of the time. He's jealous and he'll want to know."

Hugo smirked and leaned his arm against the back of your chair. "Oh, you want him to get jealous?"

You pushed it away gently. "No, I want him to get sloppy drunk. Don't look for excuses to start a fight."

By one in the morning, you were helping Dieter into the back of the car and sharing his infectious giggles. He could hardly stand anymore. "Are you going to be okay?"

"Ja, ja, ja." Dieter kissed your hand and held it. "I'll be along in the morning no matter the hangover. You're going into Paris with Fraulein von Hammersmark? Now?"

"Yes, and I'll go straight home in Paris, I promise. I won't stay out drinking until four with the greatest actress in all of Germany." You winked at him and leaned in for a kiss. "I love you. I'll see you soon."

He never in a thousand years would have allowed things to happen this way, if Stiglitz had not been incredibly effective in getting him absolutely hammered. You doubted if Dieter would even  _remember_  seeing you at the tavern. You stepped back from the vehicle and allowed for Hermann to close the door and drive away.

You sighed heavily, turning away from the kerb, and nearly landed on Stiglitz. "You toed an incredibly thin line for that entire time. I came all this way to keep you and your little friends from getting your cover blown, or, God forbid, killed. Why are you such an asshole?"

He laughed and took you by the arm. "Drives you insane, doesn't it?"

"We should leave. Where are we going?"

He pointed across the street, then started to pull you along. "That place is abandoned. The others are there. There's a lot to talk about, and von Hammersmark is significantly more intoxicated than you are, er, what's your name?"

You wrinkled your nose with distaste, but, given this turn of events, decided that it wasn't the worst idea. A rush of excitement hit you. The end was near. A good end. "Y/N Gardner. If you don't want to lose that hand, you'd better pull it away."

Hugo chuckled. "I like you."

Lovely Fabian, hands in his pocket outside the door of the abandoned house, scoffed. "Mark your calendar. First time you ever liked another human being."

"Bridget is inside?"

The guy nodded. "Yeah, and some friends of ours. I'm Wicki, by the way. The English kid you kept putting down is Archie."

You rolled your eyes. "Of course that would be his name. Well, gentlemen, shall we?"

Wicki touched your shoulder, keeping you from going inside. "Wait. How armed are you?"

You shrugged. "Walther PPK in my pocketbook. Cleverly hidden blade."

Hugo drew a huge breath behind you, and Wicki shook his head.

"You can't say shit like that around him. He already liked you, this is edging on dangerous. Come on."

You scowled over your shoulder at Stiglitz, who did look  _too_  happy. "You can lose more than a hand, you know."

"What did I  _just_  say?" Wicki put himself between you and Hugo and pushed you towards the stairs.

You heard Bridget's voice first, speaking English. It made your head spin. When was the last time you heard English? When was the last time you'd spoken it? Stiglitz shoved past Wicki and held onto your shoulder. He swayed just enough for you to realise how drunk he'd gotten.

"Listen to me," you snarled, testing out the shape of English on your tongue and lips. "I'm not your wife and I'm not your mother, I'm not going to look after you."

Hugo laughed and his arm slipped around your belly. "I bet you'd rather be married to me than that smirking pile of shit."

"Motherfucker, you best get your goddamn greasy paw off that woman before I throw your ass out that goddamn window, you hear me?"

If it hadn't been for Hugo's drunken manhandling, though, you would have fallen right through the floorboards and into the Earth.

"Lieutenant!" Hugo pushed you forward, his chest to your back. "Meet Y/N, she's--"

"We've met," Aldo said loudly, sharply. Everyone quit talking. Everyone was looking at the two of you, and Hugo gradually let go. You really should not have gripped his hand under the table in the bar.

"As we were in the middle of discussing," Archie piped in. "Miss von Hammersmark was just informing us that the venue for the premiere of Dr. Goebbels' new film has been changed to a much smaller, local theatre in Paris. You husband is working in conjunction with Colonel Hans Landa to cover security for this event, is that correct?"

"He's not my husband," you stammered out quickly. "He only thinks he is, but otherwise, you  _are_  correct."

Aldo's eyes widened and he looked away. He stepped toward the window and looked through the grime.

"Very well, what can you tell us? We are aware of Operation Kino. In fact, that is why we are here, not simply to butcher the German accent." Archie crossed his arms and leaned against the wall.

You just couldn't take your eyes from Aldo's back. "Well, I suppose you haven't touched base with your commander since yesterday, have you?"

"No, I'm afraid not. The plan was to do so after receiving intelligence from Miss von Hammersmark. Up until a few hours ago, we had no awareness of your existence."

"Good, you weren't supposed to." Your eyes were drawn to three men in the corner. "Who are they?"

"They don't matter," Aldo snapped. "What else ya got?"

Pain flowered in your chest, and you had to turn away from him. "Right. I was able to relay the same information, more or less, to my superiors before meeting von Hammersmark, because of Dieter's job. I was with Goebbels and his retinue when he went to view a German film at the theatre to deem whether or not it was worthy of this whole, grand affair. He gave it his stamp of approval. At one point during the film, however, I excused myself to the powder room approached the theatre operator. She was discreetly discussing with her employee how many nitrate films they would need to place behind the screen in order to blow the entire place sky-high."

Archie's eyebrows sloped upward. "Good Lord, who is this woman? Is she one of ours?"

You shook your head. "No, that's the best part. The woman is masquerading under an assumed identity, but she's no spy. She's a Jewish woman, hiding in plain sight, and the Nazis walked right into her hands. I was able to gain her trust, mostly because, given the circumstances, she didn't have much choice but to trust me, since I was clearly not going to give her away to the security guards or my husb--Dieter. Colonel Hans Landa  _himself_  murdered her family some years ago, and she intends to have revenge for them and every Jew in all of Europe. Operation Kino is not needed."

"Not needed? As in, let this girl do all this on her own, huh?" Aldo intoned.

"No, that isn't what I meant but, from what I understand, this was essentially a suicide mission, and it simply does not need to be so. We have people on the inside with an immense amount of explosive material and absolute conviction that this is what they will do, what they must do. My personal suggestion is the infiltrate the security detail once the film has begun. No one else will be up and about. It would be downright heretical for anyone to miss a moment of this godforsaken picture.

"I know for a fact that Dieter and Landa will be seated in the audience. The auditorium can then be sealed, as was the plan, with all the horribles inside, and more explosive charges can be set, and we can get everyone out of the theatre before the charges detonate. No loss of life for the Allies, absolute destruction of the entirety of the German high command. The entire Third Reich will implode, Germany surrenders, this whole part of the war is kaput. I, and I assume you as well, get to go home."

The room grew unsettlingly quiet. Wheels were turning in every head.

"Donny," Aldo said after a moment. "We need a radio. Go get in the truck."

Good God, he was massive. He stood from what looked like the frame of a bed that was entirely too small for him. "Yeah, yeah. You want I should grab the lady?"

"No, Donny, I don't want you should grab the lady. I'll do that m'self, thanks."

"I doubt it," you said. When Aldo turned around and looked at you again, finally, wearing the hat  _you’d_  given him, you lost a bit of your resolve. "I have to go home."

"You gotta run along to your little Kraut husband?" Aldo tilted his head and crossed his arms, and, again, every single eye was looking your way. "That don't strike you as suspicious?"

"H-how dare you? You know exactly who I am!" you fumed. Those other eyes didn't matter anymore. "Aldo Everett Raine--"

"I told you not to call me that, woman, and nah, you ain't runnin' off to dear ol' Dieter, you gotta fuckin' job to do." He snatched you by the hip and started to haul you back outside.

You slapped him right across the ear, and he hissed. "Have you lost your mind? The last thing you want is for him to panic because I'm not there!"

"I see that things have devolved into something of a strange and personal nature," Archie said.

"Shut the hell up!" Aldo pushed you along, scowling at the Englishman. "Who in the shit asked you for your input? It strikes me we don't even need you no more, we need her, so why don't you keep your fuckin' mouth shut?"

"She is right," Bridget interjected. "You, essentially, are kidnapping the wife of a powerful member of the Gestapo."

"Good, then he'll make mistakes, we want that." Aldo squeezed your hipbone. "Still need you too, you take Hicox, Ulmer, and, let's see. . .Hirschberg, you're with me, Utivich, you're with von Hammersmark."

"Are you  _really_  still in the habit of of bullying everyone around you into doing what you want?" you asked incredulously.

"It's called a chain of command! Did you really just?" Aldo tsked and sneered at you. "I can't believe you and your fuckin' attitude has not changed one bit. Just like your damn mother." You gasped loudly. "Call his ass in the morning and tell him you got invited to get your hair and makeup done with Hammersmark. Stiglitz! I gotta talk to you."

Outside, in the alley, Donny was already starting the transport vehicle. A short man walked quickly around to the passenger door and got inside. Stiglitz stumbled behind you and Aldo, who still had you by the hip.

"Sir?" Hugo leaned against the back of the truck.

"In that tavern, she was with Hellstrom?" Aldo asked.

Hugo looked at you, then nodded. "Yes. That was the point. We'd all be full of lead if von Hammersmark didn't think to have him call and bring her in."

"Yeah, that ain't my fuckin' point. She was with Hellstrom? How close?"

You stepped forth and patted Hugo on the cheek. "Get the hell out of here and don't say another word to him about me, okay?"

"Is he your  _real_  husband?" Stiglitz looked downright smug. "That's what's going on."

"Yes," Aldo said.

"No! No, he is not! Stigltiz, get the hell out of here before I take out my cleverly hidden blade and ram it straight--"

The German held up a hand, smirking still. "That did it. Thank you."

Aldo wrenched open the double doors of the cargo bay and glared at you. "What in the shit was that about?"

"He’s antagonising me. He wants to be threatened and talked down to." You folded your arms. "If this is the way that you intend to behave,  **just leave me alone.** "

Aldo looked at you for a long time, then pointed to the back. "Go."

"I have to go home," you hissed.

"I love you." He stepped a few feet closer, looking stern, his eyebrows drawn together, but also. . .something else. "You ain't going back to him, that ain't home,  _I’m_  home. You and me, that's home. Take that ring off."

"You're angry at me? I did my job, Aldo." You stepped up into the back of the truck, which was dark and dirty. Of course it was.

He reached up, snatched the wedding ring right off your finger, threw it into the alley, then got in next to you and shut the doors. When your lips opened to protest and demand that he go and get it, Aldo bumped his forehead against yours and kissed you for the first time in  _years_. 


	3. Chapter 3

“Why in the  _fuck_ are you here?” Aldo groused at Stiglitz, who simply shrugged after jumping down from the truck, fumbling with a lighter. Aldo ignored his men when they tried to speak to him, still holding your hand and leading you into what looked like an abandoned radio station. He always  _had_  been good at hijacking equipment and repurposing it.

“Donny,” he shouted over his shoulder. “Relay that information to the top, I’m busy. Tell ‘im I’m dead, if you gotta.”

The room he took you to must have been some sort of executive guest room. He went from one lantern to the next, making sure there was enough light. Whatever effect from the alcohol there had been was gone by now, sobered up by the sheer wonder of being in this man’s presence again.

So  _long_.

“I can’t believe you’re here,” you said with stars in your voice.

“Didn’t look all that happy about it,” he quipped. 

“You are the only one that I have ever loved,” you returned, dying for him to turn and look at you. “I have dreamed of this day so many times. I loved you so much that you were like a ghost, haunting all my days.”

“Sounds real pretty, don’t it?”

You swallowed, blinking several times. “Why don’t you believe me?”

“I do,” he said quietly. “I’m not mad at you, I’m mad at other things.” 

With those words, you slipped off your heels and tread over an old, dusty rug to hug him from behind. You gasped several times, weeping softly into his coat. “Oh, god. It’s over.”

“It’s gonna be.” Aldo twisted awkwardly, trying to get to you. “Y/N…why’re you crying?”

“Because I feel everything and I’m just so  _tired_.” You wiped your eyes carefully, mindful of your mascara. Not that Aldo had ever cared if you were perfect. “Y-you still…?”

“I love you s’ damn much I don’t reckon I know what to think.”

“I’m sorry for earlier.”

“Nah, I am.”

“We can both be sorry, it doesn’t matter.” You leaned back far enough to look up at the face that held so many secret smiles and laughs in the back of your mind, to get your fingers in his unruly hair. “How in the world did it come to pass that  _you_ …”

He shook his head, easing up by the second. “If it was orchestrated, it wasn’t by me. I thought you were…Well, don’t know where. I just imagined you in all sorts of different places.”

“I don’t know if you believe me, but you are all that I want.”

“Good,” he grumbled, one of those secret smiles crossing him just now. “I’m about to tell them I’m done. You, too?”

You nodded solemnly. “Fuck this job. It was never worth it.”

“You just saved three of my guys  _and_  the girl, probably a whole lotta people. You took one for the fuckin’  _team_.” Aldo’s thumbs traced over your cheeks. “Always knew, since I met you, you’s gonna be something special. Were you…were you always taken care of? You never did want for nothing?”

“I always had everything that I needed,” you confirmed gently, dancing just as he did around the swastika elephant in the room. “He did not hurt me.”

“Did he make you happy?”

You laughed without mirth, without even a smile. “I was only doing a job. He wasn’t even the job I was assigned, I met him, he fell into my hands, and I only wish he could know that I betrayed him every day, before he dies tomorrow night.”

“Well, you know I’d move Heaven and the stars for you.”

“The only thing I truly want is to walk away with you.”

“Hey. You’re safe.” He leaned down so that your foreheads touched and took a deep breath. “I’m glad he looked after you, I’m glad you were never cold or hungry or fightin’ off the damn mosquitos or any of the bullshit I was doin’. I wouldn’t have felt all that good about how you were livin’ if I had you with me. I hate that motherfucker, though. I don’t even know who he is.”

“He’s no one. Never was, never will be.”

“Lieutenant, Colonel knows you ain’t dead. He wants to talk to you and the lady.” Donny smiled at you. “Hi, how ya doing?”

Aldo shoved the kid out of the way and you followed, offering Donny a polite and apologetic smile.

* * *

It was the very same prison where Hugo Stiglitz had once been held. He was walking through the halls with a frightening grin when you passed by him. Aldo handed the file he had been attempting to read over to you. “Looks like first up is dear ol’ Dieter.”

You turned to him, confused. “What? I thought he was dead.”

“Well, it looks like your other German boyfriend pulled his ass out of the fire, as the wise old man says. No reason not to try and get what we can out of him. Once the investigation’s closed, Colonel says he lets us go, full benefits, full pension, everything, and we go the fuck home.”

“To Montreal?” You gave him a sidelong smirk.

Aldo reached over and squeezed your ass. “That’s real cute. We’re headed to Tennessee.”

“So you think,” you sang. 

“Mhm. He’s in here. You sure you wanna be present?” Aldo looked around his environs. “This place is a shithole. It’s a mean, awful, miserable place. I hated being here the first time.”

“I’m not sure how involved I’ll be in the interrogation, but I think…I think it’s important both for myself and for Dieter that I am there. He needs to understand, definitively.” You accepted a warm, quick kissed with closed eyes. “Aldo, please behave yourself.”

“I always do, missus.” He paused again before opening the door, even pressed you up against it. He placed his hand above your head and leaned down. “Now, if you get the least bit uncomfortable in there, you can always leave, but you can always climb into my lap and let me hold you, too.”

“You just want to antagonise him!” you laughed.

Aldo smiled and stole another kiss. “It can serve many purposes. You ready?”

“I’m very ready for it to be over,” you sighed. 

He nodded once, then let you loose and pushed the door open for you.

You walked in first, still holding the file on Dieter in your arms. He was disheveled with some minor, superficial wounds, his arms bound, his hands chained through a loop welded into the metallic table. “Marie?  _Warum hast du dich mitgenommen, mein Liebling?”_

Dieter was straining his bonds, pure panic in his eyes. He reached for you, chains rustling together. “ _Keine Angst, Liebling, ich werde nie zulassen, dass diese amerikanischen Schweine dir etwas antun._ ”

You cleared your throat, taking one of the chairs on the opposite side of the table, and opened up the file on the table in front of you. “Mr. Hellstrom, for the purposes of this interrogation and other investigative procedures related to the crimes alleged against you, the language of convenience will be English. I understand that you speak it quite well?”

At once, Dieter grew still and silent, staring at the file, then at you. His lips parted, but he nodded. “Yes, you know that I do. Marie, my love–”

Aldo slammed the door behind himself so that the crash echoed off the metal and stone masonry. When he sat beside you, Dieter closed his mouth. He was looking between you, realisation and denial.

“Mr. Hellstrom, I must inform you before we begin that my name is not Marie Fournier–”

“Hellstrom,” the man said forcefully.

“As you wish. My name is  _not_  Marie Ann-Christine Fournier-Hellstrom.” You smiled blankly and held eye contact with him for a moment before going on. “You may call me Agent Gardner. I operate under the arm of the United Kingdom’s Special Operations Executive, although you may know us by our other monikers: the Baker Street Irregulars, Churchill’s Secret Army, the Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, and so on. 

“Beside me is Lieutenant Aldo Raine, United States Army, Special Forces, Office of Strategic Services, and, perhaps most glamorous, the head of the team known to the German Armed Forces and Gestapo as the Basterds, or the Inglourious Basterds, depending on to whom you are speaking.”

Aldo chime in cheerfully. “Lieutenant Aldo Raine, pleased to meetcha.”

“Marie, was hat das alles zu bedeuten?“

“Hey!” Aldo slammed his hand upon the table. “She said speak English, so you’s gonna speak English.”

“ _You_  are not English,” Dieter said. He refused to even look Aldo’s way.

“Afraid not, but I am a servant to the King, all the same. Now that this has been taken care of, Lieutenant Raine will conduct this interrogation and I will be taking record. Please do not disturb me while I work.”

“Was für ein Verhör? Zu welchem Zweck?“

“The record shall reflect that Mr. Hellstrom has asked what this interrogation pertains to. Lieutenant Raine?”

Aldo folded his arms in front of himself on the table and drummed his fingers a few times. He was staring hard at Dieter, and you knew that he was trying to get beneath the man’s skin. It was his way. “So, Dieter, here’s the situation, and I’m only gonna tell you one time. During the execution of Operation Kino, one of your contemporaries, Colonel Hans Landa, managed to broker himself a deal, actually, broker a deal for you and another fella. Y’all get full pardon for any crimes you may have committed against, well, humanity itself, y’all get to act like you’s on our side the whole time, blah blah blah. 

“Since you’s married to a spy from the United Kingdom, you’re in a unique position to take advantage, as it’s a lot less suspicious, more believable. What we’re trying to accomplish here is figure out whether you’re able to convincingly play your part as a loyal spy of the United States of America.”

Dieter turned to you again, saying nothing for some time. “You should have told me.”

You cleared your throat. “Remove emotionality from your current situation, Mr. Hellstrom, and it becomes apparent that I could not have done so.”

“I have promised myself to you for all time, in sickness and health, I would never betray my wife,” Dieter contended, regardless. 

“Aww, shut the fuck up with that shit.” Aldo glared at him unpleasantly. “Don’t bother her. Act like she ain’t even here. It’s me you’re dealing with.”

“You are a disgrace to your own country,” Dieter said quickly. “You think that the Gestapo did not know everything there is to know about you? You sickening swine.”

“You ain’t gotta butter me up,” Aldo chuckled. “Now. I’m not a big fan of this particular idea, but, in return for your cooperation, you got a life, quiet little life in the States, got your pension, a home, it all checks out. Only way that works, though, is if you follow the  _terms_.”

Dieter eyed him with an impatient smirk. “And what are those terms?”

“First off, you don’t ever talk to this here woman again.” 

You knew that to be an Aldo term, not one of those officially laid out by the Colonel. 

“You do not look her up. You do not call her. You do not write her letters. You do not put out an ad in the newspaper,” Aldo continued. 

“ _Nein, nein, nein, nein, nein,”_ Dieter chuckled without smiling and shook his head. “You have already, yourself, identified her as my wife. Wherever I go, my wife goes, too. Regardless of what has happened on this night, I love her, I’m the one she is sworn to for the rest of her life. Very little do you understand of decency and honour, I realise, but you are a creature far below that of my beloved.”

“You don’t know her  _name,”_ Aldo mocked him. “Everything she ever told you was a lie; spies don’t ever want you to know the truth about anything. That’s the thing, it’s called spying. She  _spied_  on you. She fed information about you, about your job, about everything, to the Brits for  _years_.”

“That hardly makes a difference to my own heart or to hers. You don’t understand the position of man and wife loving each other. I am shaken, I am angry, I am quite confused, but I can conquer anything with her by my side.”

You took a deep breath and leaned back in your seat, pencil down. You swallowed and looked at the man detained at the other end of the table. "Dieter, I don’t love you. I have never loved you. This was all a lie. You walked right into my web, and I caught you and used you for what you were good for. Now the war has ended, the Nazi party is scrambling and mostly dead, and the world can thank the loyal Dieter Hellstrom for bringing down the Third Reich. It is time to lay this down and to accept reality, because if you cannot, then it will not possible for you to take what the United States government has offered.”

Dieter looked like a still from a film reel, utterly still and unchanged from his previous posture and visage. Everything but his eyes. “My love,” he began, “would you mind lighting a cigarette for me?”

“Okay, I’m done bein’ polite.” Aldo put his hand over yours before you could get a cigarette out of the pack. “Don’t go anywhere close to him. He’s gonna grab you and slam your pretty little head against the table and knock your ass out cold.”

“You dog!” Dieter shouted now, thrashing again. “I have never allowed any harm to befall her, and I would  _never_  cause that harm, myself! Do you think that I will sit here and take these heinous accusations from a man who was lynched by his own fellow Americans for being a queer?”

Aldo laughed belly deep, one hand slapping against the table with glee, while you were horrified. You had not known that Dieter’s intelligence of the Basterds ran so deep. 

“That may be true,” Aldo said, leaning as close as he could to Dieter without actually climbing onto the table. “But hey, this queer  _fucked your wife_.”

With much embarrassment, you felt your hands covering your face. “Dear God, Aldo, decorum wouldn’t hurt you.”

“Is this  _true_?” Dieter hissed disbelievingly.

“Oh yeah, it’s true. This here queer  _ffffucked your wife_. I took her by your house, you know, to pick up her things ‘n all, and I  _ffffucked your wife,_ right in the bed you sleep in.” Aldo looked happy as a pig rolling in shit, which was pretty much what was happening, in a metaphorical sense. He began to laugh, light and vivacious, at the look on Dieter’s face, how his entire countenance had transformed into something you’d never seen before.

“How do you expect me to believe that you have ever done anything with my female wife when you  _admit_  to your own atrocities?” Dieter demanded.

“Aw, hell, it don’t matter. Isaac was a good man, loved me, took care of me. So does she.” Aldo didn’t look at you, but placed his hand quite obviously on your upper thigh. “I told her, she didn’t care. That’s what the world is headed to, is what people like you can’t understand. You wanna go back in time to where there’s no tolerance, and we’re the ones looking ahead, accepting everyone as they are. 

“That’s what she did, accepted me as I am, especially when I took her virginity. She was this gorgeous, tender thing, and I  _sullied_  her. You may’ve managed to get your cracks in, but all that’s over with, and I’ll always be the first and last man that ever-so-carefully pounded the living hell–”

“Aldo!” You cried.

“And hell, if you’s gonna call  _me_  queer, you better call  _her_  queer, too, because, once upon a time, when we’s in Canada, this little gal got it in her head that she wanted to try a bunch of different things, and one of those was her friend Simone’s pussy. I had a front-row seat to that show–or a back-row seat, seeing how I was fucking her from behind, and that whole time, I watched her tongue and her lips and her fingers touch that girl–”

“Aldo, that is enough!” You stood and waved your hands in front of yourself.

“Marie–”

“Shut the fuck up,” you said to Dieter, in a tone you’d never used with him before. “By the way, our marriage is officially nullified by the Allied Powers and their nations. I think he gets your point, Aldo, but, even so, I’m stepping out, now.”

“I got what I wanted,” Aldo stood too, putting his arm around you with a big grin towards Dieter. “She calls me–”

“Let’s go.” You steered him through the door and looked around, turning your back on Dieter for the last time. “Is there somewhere we can go? Can we get away now? I need about three bottles of champagne. Time to celebrate?”

“You ain’t mad?” Aldo asked sheepishly. 

The bubbly laughter rising from your throat echoed with your footsteps. “You could have avoided all of that, you know.”

“I  _could’ve_.” Aldo snickered. “But nah.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! You can find this and a lot more at my tumblr, warmommy.tumblr.com!


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